mike rossi

Below is a response from your office to an email I sent to Senator Ball, however, I don't understand how this reply is relevant to my message. My original message follows the response. I would appreciate if you take a few moments to read my letter and recommend Senator Ball asks Senator Avella and the cosponsors of S-6589 to reconcile my statements before deciding whether or not to support their proposal. . Hide message history On Friday, March 14, 2014 9:30 AM, Greg Ball <[email protected]> wrote: Hello! It is an honor to serve as your State Senator and while I am focused on the number one issue that effects us all, jobs, jobs, jobs, I appreciate your correspondence on Animal Rights. I appreciate your reasoning on this issue and I look forward to further dialogue as we move forward during the 2014 legislative session. I need your help to continue to fight for animal rights and to protect our furry friends! I understand your concerns about animal rights, please know that I am as passionate as you are about protecting our most vulnerable friends, our animals. I have fought throughout my entire career to help protect animals. Bills that I have sponsored to protect animals include: - Buster’s Law Registry (S2305-A): Creates a Criminal registry of those who violate Buster’s Law, which made animal cruelty a felony in New York State. -Charlemagne’s Law (S7268- A): Updates and improves the standards of care at licensed pet dealers in New York State -Bushmeat Bill (S2649 - A): Combats the import of bushmeat (meat from wildlife species such as elephants, gorillas, antelope, etc.) and closes federal loopholes -Abused Animal Care Act (S2665 – : Requires Animal Abusers to pay for the cost of care for abused animals that have been seized - Puppy Mill Bill: Would make it a felony to intentionally fail to provide adequate shelter for a dog Please contact your local Assembly Member as well to get their support on these critical issues. I also invite you to join me for Animal Advocacy Day in Albany. This year the event will be held on May 28th in the Capital. Please contact my office at 845-279-3773 for more information. It is vitally important that we work together to find commonsense solutions that work to make New York great again! Always know that your thoughts and concerns are appreciated and will be taken into consideration as I vote and conduct my duties as your State Senator. If you would like to meet with me personally, I’d be honored! Sincerely, Greg Ball Senator Greg Ball, 40th Senate District Chairman, Veteran's, Homeland Security and Military Affairs Committee

Do you think wolves or other predators create less opportunities for trophy class bucks? They might, but I am not sure they do, but it is pretty apparent that trophy bucks rate very high in terms of hunter satisfaction.

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=f86cbefe-0cd5-4b8c-af4e-5c37b560f699&c=0ef02960-1f28-11e3-a3de-d4ae52754dbc&ch=0f2bd2d0-1f28-11e3-a438-d4ae52754dbc

If the Tony Avella mute swan bills progress to a vote, he and a number of cosponsors are going to have some tough questions from other lawmakers to answer. This is because his colleagues have been provided relevant facts by many people. By providing lawmakers with solid facts we can create a situation that other lawmakers cant just spew propaganda without accountability, and eventually wont, because they know they will be embarrassed when confronted with the facts by their peers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hknB1fH6BlQ

If you convince a senator or assemblyman the facts are important they will ask the bill sponsors some tough questions and try to persuade other lawmakers ... This is why we should write politicians with factual statements.... Its not just numbers and when you don't have the numbers you must have the facts... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c8uOvlIEyc

Here is another link, this is a mixed bag, but it will help people understand what goes on. http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/apc601nov12smr.pdf

Here is the DEC's summary report of the public comment it received on the last deer management plan. This is also useful to understand the process a little better and perhaps encourage participation. http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/wildlife_pdf/deerplanapc.pdf

That is a bit of an exaggeration, although there are some non resident signatures. There is a huge opposition right within the state and they managed to get bills introduced in both state houses with multiple sponsors and cosponsors. I wouldn't exactly say the NY Rod & Gun Club and the fire department that instigated this controversy are who is benefitting from this attention as they both have claimed. This controversy engaged more anti-hunters and organized them better. Far more state residents than the total number on that petition. I didn't have to go too far out of my way to follow the buzz about this, its all over.

I don't need him to explain anything to me or point me to any published research. I already read the literature on the subject. I was suggesting that might be able to reconcile the regime of QDM with the research findings or theories. Obviously parts of NY, PA, NJ and other states still have antler restrictions so the research published this far has not been used to revise management strategies. That does not mean in the future further research will or will not guide management approaches in a different direction.

I don't know but you sure can suggest that during the public comment phase. This sounds counter intuitive but one aspect of the DEC's responsibilities is to fairly distribute the resource. Under that logic you killing ten deer is not preferred over ten hunters killing one deer each. Perhaps the people already hunting are not shooting does? Admittedly I don't see the crossbow crowd doing it differently. Its not the crossbow that kills female deer, its the shooter that kills female deer.... Why not tighten up restrictions on predator harvest and restore wolves to the state?

Fine on the gun rights, but this week Kansas introduced five very serious anti-conservation bills. The Midwest from Kansas to North Dakota has historically been very conservation minded, but the new gov wants to buck the system apparently, with their close neighbor Oklahoma doing some unsavory stuff too all of a sudden.

Yearling bucks, like teenage boys have different behaviors than the rest of the population. A lot of those yearling buck behaviors seem to be enabling of CWD. The research is in it's infancy, but it is possible that in the future conclusions from these studies will recommend against protecting yearling bucks or skewing the population sex/age structure to favor them. I am not well informed about QDM however. There may be other strategies in it which mitigate the potential problem. For example, if population densities are managed at smaller levels, perhaps because more food means bigger deer, than the impact of the proverbial young bucks might be mitigated. That might be the topic of future research as well... Some of you guys go to the QDM seminars, what does that Ross guy say about this, ask him next time...

That bolsters the argument that it is more sporting to use a regular bow, but think population control, it also bolsters the argument more deer will be killed if crossbows are allowed. Heck, some don't even adhere the sporting argument, their premise is it crossbows enable older or disabled hunters. Others who might even acknowledge the greater challenge don't care...

If this is partially directed at me, because I explained how and why this proposal achieved the necessary public support to influence the governor and the legislature; let me make it clear that explanation was not to belittle the crossbow coalition. I offered that explanation so that people who don't get it, do get it. As a matter of fact, Rick McGovern is one of our face book subscribers, not sure if he did any outreach for us, but he is on our page. And his enlistment on our page is not any influence on my neutral position on the crossbow issue. If I had a strong opinion either for or against crossbows you would have heard it... If you want to give me crap, you can give me crap about when this comes to public comment; I might suggest greater protections on bears, coyotes, bobcats and also suggest that the DEC evaluates gray wolf or red wolf restoration. My justification for these recommendations is that hunters do not shoot doe deer and increased buck harvest will not achieve population reduction goals... And you all don't shoot very many does, and given the choice, you certainly take bucks... And their is no indication social attitudes among hunters are changing in this respect, as a matter of fact trophy hunting is growing to new heights, even dubbed "hornography" by some biologists...

Think retention, not just recruitment... It is not hard to believe that legalizing a new weapon does not recruit brand new hunters into the sport. However, crossbow proponents will argue retention - that it allows older hunters to remain active longer. How they get their deer out of the woods is a good question though...

This post does not belong in the waterfowl forum. It doesn't even belong in the small game forum.

This is not only about suburban deer being overpopulated and/or a nuisance and/or spreading ticks. This is also about rural deer being a 'keystone species', which means it is a species that modifies the landscape. In the case of whitetails, it specifically refers to alteration of plant communities. Another example of a keystone species is a beaver. But while beavers increase biodiversity, which is a good thing; the whitetail deer does the opposite, they decrease biodiversity and that is not a good thing. There has been new research which shows a (measurable) change in plants caused by deer. One of the studies was actually done by the Nature Conservancy, one of the organizations that testified in favor of crossbows. There is a link to that study in their testimony. The empirically proven impact of whitetail deer on plant communities and biodiversity is one of the reasons the DEC's deer management plan calls for herd reduction. One of the strategies to accomplish that goal is to allow crossbow hunting. However, unless hunters take doe instead of bucks, the population will not be reduced. The only other options to heavier harvest of doe are birth control and natural predators. Birth control is considered the least desirable strategy by many biologists. I would not be surprised if wolf restoration and/or greater restrictions on taking coyotes, bobcats, and bears is entertained in the future.

Based on the latest science, the latest management regimes across the nation recommend maintaining much smaller deer populations. Crossbows are a tool to achieve that management goal. This has been mentioned by me on here before and its in the links I posted, you guys just don't read anything except hunting journalism. My wife just said to say that only hunters read that stuff, not the politicians and non hunting public majority...

Those types of toxins are already present in sub-lethal levels in anything and everything we eat. The issue is of these toxins building up in tissues of animals and people and in the environment; rather than direct lethal poisoning or acute illness . Unless you are eating organic beef, they spray that stuff on livestock as well, legal or not, and as I said, even if they didn't spray livestock, its already in the environment. That doesn't suggest you trivialize toxins in food, its like smoking, some people don't care, but others avoid it. In any event, it is not responsible to spray it on deer. And it would surprise the heck out of me if spraying deer actually was effective at reducing ticks...

Lawdaz corrected me above, according to him, the industry took the outdoor writers on trips. Yes, that would certainly would build support within the hunting community, but is not a direct influence on the governor and the legislature.

My honest answer, based on common sense, is that the testimony of the Nature Conservancy and the Audubon Society was the greatest influence on Governor Cuomo and the members of the senate and assembly. The politicians are even less likely to listen to the DEC or FWS than those organizations, even if they are saying the same exact thing. The DEC and other wildlife agencies are less credible because they are characterized by anti-hunters as being in collusion with hunters. Conservation organizations are considered politically correct and unbiased. Hunting and hunting organizations are considered not politically correct and highly biased..

The crossbow proposal had broad-based public support, not just support from the hunting community. If Robert Sweeney, the chairmen of the assembly en-con committee, agreed with the last bill, it would have passed vote at that time, even with all those downstate assembly members that usually vote against hunting bills. The broad-based public support was achieved by the lobbying effort of the Nature Conservancy and the Audubon Society, organizations which down state assembly members find credible and because they are making ecologically-based arguments , based on their own research and consistent with the DECs management plan, not special interest hunting arguments. I cant emphasize this enough because if this does not become a learned lesson I doubt there is any hope. "Broad-Based Public Support" is essential to passing hunting - related legislation. Regardless of what side of the crossbow controversy you are, this cascade of events should be a lesson learned. Someone on here and others have argued that the crossbow industry was behind this. According to one of the sponsors of the last senate bill, I believe Dave Valesky or Mark Grisanti, the industry was not an influence. I see no testimony from the industry either. Even if they did lobby in NY, those assembly members densely clustered south of the Tappen Zee Bridge were not likely to be influenced by a hunting product industry.

All that, and while the gun hunters and archers were going back and forth for three years about whether it is easier to take a deer with a crossbow the senate, assembly, governor and the DEC were ignoring you all and looking at page 4 Audubon and page 7 Nature Conservancy of these links: http://www.nysenate.gov/files/pdfs/Testimony%20Audubon%20New%20York.pdf http://www.nysenate.gov/files/pdfs/Testimony%20The%20Nature%20Conservancy.pdf

He is correct. You cannot piggy-back with other issues.